Google Backup and Sync is here: let's take a look

Google Backup and Sync is a new program by Google that combines Google Photos and Google Drive functionality in a single client application.

The new client replaces the old clients that Google provided for these tasks. Downloads are available on Google Drive and Google Photos; I could not get the download to start on Google Drive, but the download started fine on Google Photos.

The new Google Backup and Sync is available for Windows and Mac operating systems only at this point in time. It seems that it is not available for mobile devices yet, as Google is still advertising its Google Photos application for mobile devices on the Photos download page.

Google Backup and Sync

You are asked to sign in to a Google Account after installation. This is a straightforward process; you enter your username, then the Google account password, and if enabled, the two-factor authentication code on top of that.

Note that the new application is not intended for Google Suite users. These will have access to Drive File Stream at a later point in time.

Google Backup and Sync prompts you for making a choice in regards to backups. You can select to back up photos and videos only, or all files (in selected folders).

Once you have made that initial decision, you are asked to make additional selections on the next (and final setup) screen.

The first lets you select the folders on the computer that you want synchronized to Google Drive. Desktop,Documents and Pictures are selected by default. You may uncheck any of those, and add custom folders to the backup process as well.

The second option has been taken directly from Google Photos. You are asked to select a quality level for uploaded images. The default is "high quality" which does not count against the storage quota of the account. You may switch that to original quality, which may count against the quota but ensures that photos are uploaded in their original resolution and not modified by Google in the process.

A click on the "advanced settings" link opens an option to sync "My Drive" to this computer. This synchronizes the data on Google Drive with the computer in question. Note that this option is not selected by default, and needs to be checked.

Google will compare files on the device with those online, and start the sync process right after you hit the start button on the last setup page.

Preferences

Google Backup and Sync ships with additional preferences that become available after the initial sync is underway.

You may change the preferences that were presented to you during setup, and the following ones:

Select how items are deleted. You have three options:

Don't remove items everywhere -- The default option keeps files on Google Drive if you delete them on the computer.

Remove items everywhere -- When you delete items on your computer, or on Google Drive, files in other sync locations get deleted as well.

Closing Words

Google Backup and Sync combines Google Photos and Google Drive sync functionality in a single client. Google users on Windows or Mac devices that use an older client may want to consider installing the new client instead to take advantage of that.

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About Martin Brinkmann

Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand.You can follow Martin on Facebook, Twitter or Google+

Comments

Anybody who trusts the (IMO) NSA backed Google is a complete fool. Keep your data on an air-gapped system. “Do no evil” my a**. Some may argue, “But I have nothing to hide.” To this argument I say, “Maybe you don’t now, but the day may come when you do.”

As I just installed it, it is now re-syncing my photos and files, which is well over a terabyte of files. It will be interesting to see how long this takes on my first computer. Hope it doesn’t want to re-upload everything. If so, then this is a big problem as I have other computers that will need to sync.

Just thought I’d comment on Ghacks itself and not Google Backup, but the font color is too gray and I really have a terrible experience when I visit the site. I’m on a Mac, so maybe things look better on Windows?

It should not look like this at all. I don’t have access to a Mac and cannot fix this right now unfortunately. We are working on a new theme though and the issue should be gone when it gets released. I set the text color to full black right now (instead of #333333 which is dark gray).

I’m using the Font Changer with Google Web Fonts extension from the Chrome Store (using it on Opera) to mitigate the font issue on Mac. I’m setting the font weight to ‘Normal’ which makes the site much more readable.

It would have been nice if this application also maintained file history and was built so that it made your computer resilient to ransomware attack.

This is an excellent example of a product that was conceived and developed for two year but Agile did nothing to update the requirement to embed mitigating emerging threats to data availability.

They didn’t solve for the 99% when this was a great opportunity. I would have recommended this solution to every mom-pop-cousin to use this and pay the $2/mo for additional Google Drive space to increase chance of recovery from ransomware attacks.

I cannot figure out how to change additional preferences, like the default setting of “don’t delete items everywhere”. The instructions I found said “First click on “Backup and Sync” on your computer”. I can’t find any such thing. I have a “My Drive” on my tool bar but it has no settings for what I need. Any help will be appreciated.

I’ve found the whole Backup and Sync process very confusing. My photos on Google Photos now seem in complete disarray, my list of ‘people’ has shrunk to just 2 faces, my photos on my computer have been ‘optimized’ i.e. they’ve shrunk in size, etc. So I decided to uninstall it and regroup, get my wits back. But I find this morning that it is still running, still syncing my files, even though it’s no longer installed! Anybody any idea how to get rid of this? (maybe I should be posting this on a Google support forum but I tend to trust the folks on this site) Many thanks.

About gHacks

Ghacks is a technology news blog that was founded in 2005 by Martin Brinkmann. It has since then become one of the most popular tech news sites on the Internet with five authors and regular contributions from freelance writers.